Enough
by Hunsdon
Summary: "It's an office night. It's not an Alexis's room night or, worse, a gone entirely night. He's not bleak and immovable with his head hanging almost to his knees, fingers laced behind his neck. He's not wandering dark streets, alone and freezing half to death. It's not as bad as it could be." Six-shot set after Hunt/Target (5 x 15, 5 x 16). COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Enough

WC: ~1300, this chapter

Rating: T

Summary: "It's an office night. It's not an _Alexis's room_ night or, worse, a _gone entirely_ night. He's not bleak and immovable with his head hanging almost to his knees, fingers laced behind his neck. He's not wandering dark streets, alone and freezing half to death. It's not as bad as it could be." Two- or possibly three-shot set after Hunt/Target (5 x 15, 5 x 16)

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><p>It doesn't wake her any more. Not always, anyway, and she hates the idea that she's growing used to this. It's one of too many things wrong right now.<p>

It's not what wakes her tonight. Tonight the struggle up from sleep comes courtesy of the _one more glass, pleeeeaaaasssseee, Kate? _that she'd let him talk her into. That she'd hoped might help. Him, not her. She's not the one who wakes lately. The one who never makes it all the way to sleep some times. Too many times.

She reaches out. She spreads her fingers. Her palm meets cool sheets, pulled snug and neat. They tell her what she already knows. He's been up a while. He's up for good.

* * *

><p>She slips her arms into the oversized t-shirt. It's big on him, enormous on her. The last thing he wore before he ran off to Paris without her. She hasn't washed it. Hasn't given it back. She doesn't plan to.<p>

He teases her about it. He has, anyway, but the last time he'd grabbed for it. He'd tugged hard enough to pop a few of the stitches around the neck. She'd turned on him and roared. She'd hit out with her fists and stormed away.

He hasn't teased her since. They haven't talked about it, even though she still wears it to bed most nights.

It's another thing that's wrong.

* * *

><p>It's an office night. It's not an <em>Alexis's room<em> night or, worse, a _gone entirely_ night. He's not bleak and immovable with his head hanging almost to his knees, fingers laced behind his neck. He's not wandering dark streets, alone and freezing half to death. It's not as bad as it could be.

He's in his desk chair facing the wall of glass. He's staring at nothing. Nothing she can see, anyway, but she supposes that particular landscape is vast—the places she can't see that he stares into for a living.

"Kate!"

Her shadow falls across him. His face brightens and he lifts his arms to her. It's a better night than some.

"I woke you. Sorry," he whispers as she comes to him.

"You didn't." The graze of his midnight-rough cheek over the bare skin of her shoulder raises a shiver. "You _did_," she says, on second thought. He laughs and nuzzles her cheek with his nose. He's entirely too enamored of the way he undoes this middle-of-the-night version of her. "Too much wine." She flicks a nail at his ear. "Have to pee."

"Have to?"

He gives an exaggerated grimace, and shifts her in his lap, as if he's going to push her away. He's playing it up. Laughing it off.

It's one of _those _nights, but she catches him. She curls her fingers in his hair, one palm on either side of his face, and she holds him just close enough so he has to look her in the eye. Just close enough so there's no far-off nothing to stare into. There's nothing else in the world to see.

"You have to come back to bed." She murmurs it softly and lets her lips drift to his.

"Have to," he murmurs back.

* * *

><p>There's a rhythm to it she doesn't really understand. Stretches of days and nights where he's fine. He's himself. They work cases. He's flip and annoying and ridiculous and helpful and they thrive together. The best in him and the best in her, side by side.<p>

He writes in the evenings sometimes, and there's no more drama over that than usual. No less, either.

She's making her way through the office to the bedroom a few nights later. He's tapping away. He doesn't seem to notice she's there, and she's not inclined linger. She's not inclined to be his excuse for knocking off for the night.

It's good for him. Spilling it all out on to the page and working through it. It should be good, but he slams the lid of the laptop hard enough to shake the desk, solid as it is. He curses, but it's shredded to nothing by clenched teeth and something else.

_Sorrow._

He stares through her for a drawn-out terrible moment. His eyes fix on her exact location, but he's not there with her. She's not there with him, and his face is completely unguarded. It's tired and lined. It's crowded with this bewildered, all-consuming _grief_ that has her rushing to him, though she'd meant to move quietly on. A second ago, she'd been determined to leave him to it.

It has her dropping to her knees at his side and pulling his hands away from their white-knuckled grip on the edge of the desk. It has her wrestling the chair to face her and reaching to pull his forehead to her own.

"Hey." Her palm sweeps over his cheek and down the rigid line of his neck. "Castle . . . sweetheart, what is it?"

"Kate." His fingers are curled around her arms. His cheek is pressed to hers, but he sounds surprised all the same. Like he's just awoken. "Kate, I'm . . ." He shakes it off. He tries to, but over shoots. "It's fine. Characters not behaving, that's all."

"Don't." The fierceness of the word surprises them both. The bite of her nails into skin and muscle, even through his shirt. It surprises them both. "Don't _do _that."

He hauls her up by her wrists. Their bodies are at odds. They're all clumsy, strange angles until finally she lands, an awkward heap in his lap, and the chair is groaning.

"I'm not." He mumbles into her shoulder. "Sorry, I'm not trying to . . . it's just . . . stuff. All this _stuff _keeps coming up, and I can't get anything done."

"Stuff," she echoes. She brushes the word over his ear, letting her lips linger until he shivers. Until some of the tension leaves him. "The dread _stuff._"

He smiles at that. She feels the puff of breath that might be laughter warming her skin and the twitch of his lips. It's _her _thing. Shorthand she uses when she stumbles over something huge in therapy and she doesn't know how to come at it. How she'll ever come at it. _Stuff,_ she says, and he leaves it alone, mostly.

He leaves it and she doesn't know how. Insight flares up from her toes. It burns all of her from the inside out, and she has no idea how he does it. She wants to dig in. She shuts her eyes hard and sees the shadows on his face. She wants to hunt it down—that grief—and choke it off at the source. She wants to _know, _and she has to figure out how to leave it. Mostly.

He pulls back from her a little. Loosens his arm around her waist and looks up. He's shaky. More than a little shaky, and she itches to say something. To _do _something.

"Paris," he says, because that's who _he _is. Even when he's stealing a page from her book. "It keeps being Paris, and there are all these . . . there's just all this . . ."

"Stuff," she finishes. "Fucking _stuff._"

"Fucking stuff."

His tips his chin up to kiss her. His eyes are closed again and he half misses her lips. She laughs and sinks her hands into his hair to right the two of them. To bring them into alignment, but his eyes flick open.

"Sweetheart?" He blinks at her. "Did you just call me _sweetheart_? Is it _that _bad?"

_Shut up. _That's what she wants to say. She wants to give him a sharp elbow to the ribs and let it all rush away. She wants to let the moment turn playful. She wants to drink in that relief, but she can't forget the look on his face. She can't forget that far-away sorrow.

"It looked bad." She wraps her arms tight around his shoulders and brings her mouth to his ear again. "It looked pretty bad."

He holds her just as tight. "Fucking stuff."

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><p>AN: Thanks for reading. Can't decide if I want to split the remaining chapter into two or not. Should be up within a few days.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Enough, Ch. 2

WC: ~1400, this chapter, ~2700 so far

Rating: T

Summary: "Most of the time she envies the way he's built for happiness. For recovery. But she wonders sometimes. She thinks about that one unguarded moment and his face, all shadows and hurt, and she wonders at the cost of letting things go the way he does." Three-shot set after Hunt/Target (5 x 15, 5 x 16)

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><p>It's another little while before it's one of those nights.<p>

_Resilient by nature, brooding by trade_.

He's said it more than once. It comes with a smile on a sliding scale of sincerity. It's how she thinks of him, though. Most of the time she envies the way he's built for happiness. For recovery. But she wonders sometimes. She thinks about that one unguarded moment and his face, all shadows and hurt, and she wonders at the cost of letting things go the way he does.

She wonders about it as she struggles into the oversized t-shirt and tries to read the sheets like tea leaves. They're an afterthought tonight. Not carelessly thrown back, but not tugged neatly over the pillow, either. He's here. She thinks so, at least, and it's more than just the sheets. It's whatever woke her.

A sound. A noise that sets her to humming softly, and it doesn't make much sense. Her feet scuff over carpet and floorboard and she doesn't know until she's there what any of this is. She doesn't know until she's creaking down on to the bench beside him that it's here she's found him. The last place she'd look within these four walls.

"A note." She yawns and lays her hand over his. They rest together, their two hands, on the flipped up lid of the piano, arrested in the act of closing it, maybe. "I heard a note."

"Betrayed by B-flat," he says, but the joke is quiet as he scoots aside to give her more room. "Sorry. Didn't mean to."

"You're up." She hopes it's not too little. Or too much. She'll leave him be, if he wants, but she won't not try.

"I'm up." He turns his head to press an awkward kiss to her temple. To say it's not too much _or_ too little. "Writing. Mostly. Kind of."

He sounds like he doesn't quite know. But the writing part is true enough. The fingers of his free hand trail and tap over the keys. He does that when the words are almost there. Almost ready to make it out, one way or another. He does that, and as much as she needles him about "working" while he reorganizes the glassware or sharpens his pencils to points so wicked they'll stick in the dartboard, she knows it's more than likely to be true tonight.

"Writing." Her own fingers stretch and come down on the keys. She strikes a fifth softly, and likes the way it rolls out over the emptiness of the loft. Alexis is back in the dorm and Martha's away doing a workshop upstate. It's welcome, that sound. It feels like company, so she drags a finger along. The low glissando pushes against the darkness. It lifts a little of the weight settling on the two of them here, rattling around alone and together.

"It's Nikki's," she says. Realization comes to rest as the highest note fades away, and she smiles, pleased with herself. "_This _piano."

"It's Nikki's." He smiles, too. He punctuates it with an arpeggio, then pulls his hand back suddenly. "And my mother's. But let's not . . . dwell."

"Martha's." She's surprised. She's assumed all this time that he'd gotten it for Alexis. The best of everything. Every possibility open, though Kate knows she'd gravitated early to violin.

_Martha__'__s. _It casts the whole corner of the loft in a different light for her, somehow. Photos and the tall vase of lilies. It's different.

_Somehow_.

It nags. Something about not knowing until this moment feels important. She runs her hands along the lid. Along the ledge beneath the keys. She feels the nicks and dips lovingly covered over. She feels the warmth of age.

"Did you learn on this?" she asks suddenly. That feels important, too.

He nods. A sheepish duck of head as he makes sarcastic quote marks with his fingers. "Learned."

He's not bad, though, for all his uncharacteristic humility. He plinks out accompaniment at parties now and again, and he and Lanie brought the house down with a couple of jazz standards after one particularly well-lubricated poker night.

"She's had it forever," he says absently. He picks out a few notes of melody high up. Billie Holiday, like he's read her mind. "Moved it all over New York. She even crammed it into my . . . second apartment?" He frowns, thinking about it. "Third maybe."

"She lived with you before?" That's a surprise. They're close now, in their prickly way, but she knows it's hard won.

"No." He winces like he's picturing it. The two of them jostling elbows at every turn. "She was traveling enough that she had to give up her place. Said she couldn't trust this to storage."

He raps out the story in an off-handed way, like there's nothing to it. Kate reads between the lines, though.

His second apartment. His third. It would have been lean times for both of them, and she knows how that eats at him. The mistakes he made at that first taste of wealth and how carefully he built after that. Her foot nudges out for the pedals.

She feels the give and resistance and savors the full, drawn-out tone of a quality instrument. An _expensive _instrument. Something's not quite right.

"A mystery gift." He's reading her mind again, as he plays a note in response. He gives her a nudge. She puts together a little run. Something simple and pretty that makes him smile. "She says it just showed up one day."

He stands abruptly, two fingers coming down on adjacent keys. Dissonance that curls his lip, but he's reaching down for her. Pulling her off the bench and shooing her off to the side. He lifts the padded seat and rifles around inside.

"It's here," he mutters over the rustle of paper on paper. "It should be in . . . ah ha!"

He brandishes a handful of small white squares. Photographs. He bends his head to shuffle through and pulls one out. She snatches it from his hand as soon as he turns it to her. It's a tight shot of the piano with a basket perched on top.

"Castle! Is that you?" She doesn't really need to ask. It's unmistakable. The one blue eye cracked open and the broad, toothless smile, brilliant against the pale bundle of the receiving blanket wrapping him up tight. "Why haven't I _seen _this?"

"I look fat," he grumbles, but he's pleased. He likes the way she's greedy for it.

He leans over her shoulder as she snaps on the music lamp to get a closer look. The wall behind the piano is dingy to say the least, and it's clear the space is cramped. But there's pride in the lighting and the careful angle. There's love in the just so arrangement of the basket and him and this unexpected thing of beauty.

"You must be . . . two months or so?" She flips the photo over, and there it is in Martha's bold strokes: _June 2, 1971_.

"Oooh, you're _good,_ Beckett." She feels his grin as his cheek roughs against hers. "The day it showed up."

He takes the picture from her and props it up against the music stand. He reaches beyond to brush a finger along a silver-framed photo of Alexis. His gaze lingers, his attention fixes. She studies him. She wades through the fondness and the worry, but that's before and after Paris. That's eternal, but the grief is there too. The shadow of it is there. Something snaps in place for her, sudden and not entirely welcome.

"Mysterious gift." She shivers closer to him. His arm comes tight around her, protective, but holding on. Clinging, and she doesn't have to wonder.

It's come together for him, too. _When. _It's the only thing she wonders. If he's been living with this a while or it's only just now come together. Just tonight.

She tips her head his way. He meets her eyes. His gaze is steady and she doesn't know that it matters how long.

"Mysterious." He takes one hand, then the other. He pulls her up and tugs her hips into his own. He kisses her. Sways along to the music they've just been making and glides them back toward the bedroom. "Mysterious."

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><p>AN: Thanks again for reading. Obviously it'll be three chapters. Last up in a day or two.


	3. Chapter 3

Title: Enough, Ch. 3

WC: ~1700, this chapter, ~4400 so far

Rating: T

Summary: "It's not for her to judge what better is or how he gets there. Kate knows that. But she worries about wishful thinking. His and hers. She worries that he's not so much _better_ as he is careful not to let it show. Whatever _it _is, exactly." Four-shot set after Hunt/Target (5 x 15, 5 x 16)

A/N: I was editing what was supposed to be the third and final chapter, and this moment crept in and grew into its own chapter. So. Four-shot.

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><p>He's more careful after the night at the piano. And better, too. Maybe a little better. He's playful with Alexis, and the melancholy when she goes back to the dorms is mostly an act. Mostly.<p>

He and Martha are back to trading barbs, and if he's a little quick to the soothe sting with a hand on her shoulder or a kiss in passing, it's not a bad thing.

It's not for her to judge what better is or how he gets there. Kate knows that. But she worries about wishful thinking. His and hers. She worries that he's not so much _better_ as he is careful not to let it show. Whatever _it _is, exactly.

Better or careful, there are more nights in a row when she wakes and he's there. There are still nights when she waits for him to come back. When he slides between the sheets and fits his palm against the curve of her hip. There are still nights like that, but they're fewer and farther between, and every time he drops a kiss on her shoulder. Every time he whispers _Back_ and smiles when she wriggles closer and grumbles _'__Bout time. _

She hasn't gone looking for him since the night at the piano. She hasn't had to, and she supposes that's good. That's _better._ But she wakes, still, and that's not just her. Not entirely.

He's always been restless. It makes her eyes flutter shut to remember. It tugged laughter all the way up from her toes that first night. The realization that everything she'd suspected—every theory she'd been longing to test about what it would be like to be with him—bore out exactly.

He's restless. The frenetic energy of day carries over into night, and early on she thought she'd never actually _sleep_in his bed. She'd never actually _sleep _with him in hers. Because he rolls from side to side. He yanks the blankets to his chest with a half-awake huff and pins them under his own weight when he launches into the air and turns to land on his belly.

But she's the one who's altered as weeks have turned to months. She's come to crave the warmth spilling off his body. The blissful white noise of his breath and the rise and fall of his voice as he murmurs in his sleep. She's come to find her own solid rest in the continuity of him, day to night, and night to day. She's the one who sleeps like a child with him by her side.

After Paris—right after—she'd jolt awake knowing he was gone. Terrified he was _gone _gone. That he'd never really come back, and the blessed relief of her body crashing into his had all been a dream.

But lately, she wakes, and it's different. It feels like they're back to the beginning. All the way back to when she'd crack one eye open and find him staring. When his lips and hands and breath were strange enough on her skin and at her back to chase sleep far from her. When the weight of him studying her—_learning_ her—was strange enough to draw her up and out of dreams when they came.

She wakes like that now. Suddenly, fully alert.

He's awake sometimes. Most of the time, though he doesn't always cop to it. She doesn't always call him out. She's trying to let it go when it seems like that's what he needs.

They talk some nights. He's nostalgic lately. He asks shyly about her Mom. Tentatively wonders whether she was lonely growing up. If she's ever been lonely, though he does't wait for the answer to that. He rushes on. He has a hundred stories, obviously. About Alexis as a baby. Alexis at two. At five-and-a-half.

"Now one of you," she says one night. She's dead tired. It's been too many long days to count, and she doesn't know how he has the energy. She doesn't know and she wonders suddenly if it's always been like this. "One of you," she says again.

"One of me what?" He burrows deeper into the hollow between her shoulder and the pillow. "There's only one of me."

"Lucky. Lucky for all of us." She rolls her eyes, even though she's spooned up against him and he can't see. She yawns into the pleasant shiver his breath raises all along her spine. "A story. One of you." She nudges his calf with cold toes when he's silent. "Castle at five-and-a-half."

He tenses. The quiet black of the room presses down on them both, and she doesn't know what she's said. She doesn't know why it is that everything is suddenly, definitely not better at all. She twists in his arms, an apology spilling up and out already, but the look on his face stills her tongue. It stills all of her.

"I don't . . ." His mouth twists. He takes a short, tight breath, and all she can think is _For courage _even though it's absurd. Even though it's her and him and a stupid thing she asked on a whim. Nothing he needs to be brave about. "I don't remember. Nothing, really, until . . . nine or ten, maybe. And not much at all until boarding school." His eyes find hers. "That's . . . weird, right? It's weird."

She strokes her thumb along his jaw. She thinks about it. She thinks of Burke and all the painful sifting she's had to do. Scattered things from her whole life long that she'd locked away for one reason or another.

"I don't know," she says finally. Honestly. She tips her head and studies him. There's something. _Something. _It makes her feel like this isn't one to let go. It makes her push. "Nothing at all? Really?"

His gaze skitters toward the ceiling. He's silent long enough that she doubts herself. Long enough that she calls the apology up again, but he beats her to it. A pair of quiet words.

"Not nothing."

She waits him out. She feels the breath gathering under his ribs and knows he's coming to it.

"Stories." It comes out on a sigh, but he smiles half a beat later. "Fiction, I mean. Things I . . . made up."

"That's not weird." She rushes in. Steps on his words, and she's sorry for it, but it feels important. "We all . . ." Her teeth come together hard. She's back in a leather arm chair with her feet drawn up. She's worrying the sleeve of her sweater. Frustrated at a crystal clear memory that she's just realized can't have happened the way her mind would stubbornly have it. She's swallowing hard against it all. "We rearrange. Events and things. We smash them together. We all do that. Everyone. Because it makes a better story. Because it's . . . emblematic. And it sticks in our minds that way."

She trails off, waiting for the joke. For the sly tease about _lying_. About her not-quite-flawless memory, but it never comes. He studies his own hands.

"Not like that." He shakes his head. Keeps his attention on the faded fabric of the oversized t-shirt he worries between his fingers. "It's not . . . it's not like that."

It's desolate. The words are tight and hollow and _desolate_ and she could kick herself for rushing in. Projecting her own crap on to him like it has anything to do with anything. An apology rises for the third time. For the third time, he's the one to save her from it.

"They're stories. Not memories." He has to work at the words, but he meets her eyes. She can see the set of his jaw even in the dim light. "It's not just us. Not just . . . my mother and I."

"Oh."

She wants to call it back before it's even out. The dumbest syllable in history. _Oh. _

He crooks a smile, though. Pained, but genuine. "Yeah." He kisses her nose and opens his eyes wide. "_Oh._"

It undoes the moment somehow. Or maybe it's the admission, the hold it has on him broken in the making of it. They settle closer to one another again and she's glad. That he told her. That it's over. That they're here together and the room feels right again.

She's glad, but something pushes at her. Some notion, and it's like fists pushing at her ribs from the inside.

"What does he look like?" The question slips out. It startles them both.

"_Him _him . . . ?"

"_No._"

It's too sharp. His palm comes up to cup her cheek. To soothe her. He gives her a curious look, but lets it go. She has her own issues to work through about _Him _him and Paris and everything. They both know she does, but they'll keep.

"No," she says it softly this time. "In your stories. What did he look like?"

"Not telling." He jerks the covers to his chin, like he can hide from her. "You'll laugh."

"Won't laugh." She turns a smile into his palm. "Promise."

He eyes her warily, but they both know he'll tell. They both know he can't resist.

"Jack Lord." He thrusts his chin out like he's ready for the hit. She keeps a straight face, though. "You know . . . "

"I know," she says. She arches an eyebrow. "Told you I wouldn't laugh."

"Thanks." He kisses her forehead. "You must be tired."

It's mock serious, like that explains it. Why she's not laughing. It sounds good, though. Tired sounds good.

"Must be." She murmurs her agreement and lets her eyes close. She nudges her knee between his. "You, too," she insists.

"Me, too." He sounds surprised. Pleased and weary in a good way. "Me, too."

"Night, Castle."

She tips her chin up, waiting for a kiss that's not long at all in coming.

"Night."

The word is loose and easy. His hand comes to rest on her hip. He's nodding off and so is she, but she can't quite resist. She hums a few bars of the _Hawaii Five-0 _theme. He laughs. A low, sleepy chuckle as he rucks up her t-shirt to pinch her hip.

"_Mean_," he whispers, but it's all sleepy grin and rumbling breath. It's practically a kiss.

"Not mean," she whispers back. "Didn't laugh."

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><p>AN: Thanks for reading. Final chapter should be up over the weekend.


	4. Chapter 4

Title: Enough, Ch. 4

WC: ~1800, this chapter, ~6200 so far

Rating: T

Summary: "She lets out a breath. Relief and regret in equal measure. He's writing, and life is upended for the next little while. She can live with that.." Five-shot set after Hunt/Target (5 x 15, 5 x 16)

A/N: Shoot. It took longer than I wanted to get to, and then it grew. One more after this.

* * *

><p>He sleeps solidly that night. They both do, carried off to snippets of a TV theme traded back and forth at longer and longer intervals. Carried off to shared laughter that softens the ache of his admission.<p>

He doesn't remember. She can't imagine.

The irony of it isn't lost on her, but she sleeps. They both sleep until the thin winter sun slides through the slats of the bedroom blinds.

* * *

><p>He's up first. Energized, while she lingers in the tumble of blankets, nursing the sorrow and unease she feels for him. The worry.<p>

She stares up from deep in the pillows at the play of shadows over the mug he's set on the nightstand for her. She watches as steam rises above the rim, curling and hovering a while, then growing thin. Disappearing. She wonders if it's like that for him. Giving voice to hurt in the dark. Pouring it out on to the page. She wonders if it works that way.

She hopes so, but she worries that he's running. They're, neither of them, strangers to avoidance, and she worries that's what drives him from her side. From closeness and content, when he's usually the one too apt to coax her into stillness a while. She wonders what to do. What to ask in the light of day.

He falls into writing, though. She hears it from her fortress of blankets. Keys tapping. The clatter of a dozen pens and the rustle of paper. She presses her cheek to the last of the warmth he's left behind and listens. She wants it to be a hopeful sign, but she worries.

She watches when she's finally up. When she wraps herself in things of his. A long t-shirt. The robe she's commandeered. She glides along the margins of the office. She stays out of the way, for now. Some of this, at least, is familiar, so she leaves him to it.

He stalks from point A to point B, talking to himself. Getting a feel for the words just now taking shape in his mouth. His hands open and close. He slides behind the desk. He tips his mug all the way back, and it's as though the words are gathered there in the bottom of it. His fingers meet the keys. A flurry of motion. His face, his body, and all of him fall into more familiar lines.

She lets out a breath. Relief and regret in equal measure. He's writing, and life is upended for the next little while. She can live with that.

* * *

><p>He doesn't come to bed at all that night, but it feels different. It <em>is <em>different. The thrum of energy reaches her, even from the doorway. He's not brooding and lost and staring at nothing, but it worries her still. The fact that _different _and _better _aren't the same thing.

She hooks an arm around his neck when she's stalled long enough. When she's drawn out her night-time rituals and the time left until she has to be up for work is stretched as thin as it will go.

"Up a while?"

Her breath creeps over his skin. He shivers and turns into her body.

"A while." His eyes fall closed and he breathes in deep, like the scent of her, fresh-scrubbed and ready for bed is pulling him up and out of the state he's been in all day. Like he missed her, and she's a welcome awakening.

"That ok?" He opens his eyes and pulls back a little.

She follows his gaze to the the door. To the bed she'll climb into alone.

"You won't run off to Paris?"

It's light. For her, it is. A tease to say she'll miss him, but this is how they are. How life is, given what they do, together and alone. She means it to be light, but he rises and pulls her into his body.

"Not without you." He buries his face against her shoulder. "Never again."

* * *

><p>It's the same the next day and the next and the next. He's writing. Keeping odd hours and roaming the loft. Holing up in corners and sprawling out all over flat surfaces. It's almost the same every day. He falls into bed, hardly beating the alarm most nights. He comes to the precinct late. A few days not at all. It's not unusual. She doesn't think it is, anyway.<p>

She's only been around for this once, and everything was mad and frantic between them last year. When the two of them rose from the ashes, and Nikki and Rook with them.

She remembers one night stretching into the next. Like this and not like this at all. She remembers baking hot days when he'd let her climb to the roof to drink in the sun and swear he was going to work. Baking hot days when he'd follow her anyway. When she'd follow him from bed to office to living room and back again. She knows he must have written, though his skin was never far from hers. Still, he must have written some time.

The chaos of it is unfamiliar. She doesn't remember this part. Books pulled down from the shelves that he drops wherever he happens to be. He can't find them, then. He can't find anything, and more than once it's urgent enough that he cracks the spines of the hard back versions that are supposed be for show.

He hauls boxes from closets and cubbies and pulls out hole-punched drafts with bright, dented brads. They're all tumbled everywhere. Pieces and finished products. Early versions and abandoned scenes. They're piled high in stacks and interleaved legal pads and leather-covered journals filled with handwritten notes.

She doesn't remember this part and she worries that he's searching for something he hasn't yet put words to. About Paris, except it's not exactly about Paris any more. She worries that he's looking back for answers instead of forward. She worries.

She finds an odd collection of oversized sheets spilling off the counter one morning. They're too close to the cooktop pilot light, and she has half a mind to scold him about burning the place down.

They catch her eye before she can, though. The top sheet is more of the same. Neat block capitals in boxes with tidy corners. Arrows pointing here and there and emphatic strikeouts with a heavy, frustrated pen. She means to set them aside. He snoops enough for any two people already, and he's strange about that sometimes. Self-conscious. She tries to square the odd edges and a few thick sheets tip out.

They're drawings, mostly. One is a neat, well-rendered room layout with names and symbols sketched in. Familiar initials and dotted lines showing motion. A fight or some other action sequence, she guesses.

The next sheet is just doodles. Shapes and cross-hatches and the occasional still life with coffee mug and sailboat. The familiar product of a stalled mind. She smiles at that one and thinks her own sailboats are better.

The third surprises her. He's taken a different kind of care with it, shading in the oval of a frame around the scene with delicate strokes of the pen. It's Martha, though it takes a moment to see it that way. She's slender and graceful. Upright and easy at the piano, and Kate can see exactly the way her hands must have moved when she was younger.

The perspective is strange, somehow. Everything elongated and farther away than it should be. She lays the sheet down. Her gaze drifts to the real thing, off in the corner. She thinks of sitting quietly with him that night. She thinks of the faded picture and his happy blue eyes. Suddenly the scene snaps into focus.

She looks back to the page and sees it now. The toe of a small sneaker just breaching the shadows. A chubby knee peeping out from behind heavy drapes. When she looks hard enough she sees the suggestion of him. A small boy curled in the cool dark underneath, gazing up at his mother.

"The stove. Did I really leave them there?"

It startles her. _He _startles her. She's still caught in the scene. She's looking for that little boy and her mind can't make sense of him in the here and now, yawning and stretching and shuffling toward her.

"You draw." She gathers the sheets up and holds them to her chest, like he might destroy the evidence.

"I wouldn't say . . ." He breaks off as something in her posture registers. He steps behind her like he's trying to get a peek, but she won't budge. She feels like she's holding on to something with her fingernails. Something he's wary of.

"When I get stuck," he says, finally. "Sometimes making my hand move a new way will shake something loose. Or sometimes I just need to picture it." He rests his chin on her shoulder and his elbows on the counter. He spreads his palms wide, keeping his movements slow, like he's reassuring her. "You have my cargo trailer, I think?"

It's a distraction. He's trying to tempt her, and he must know she's seen the other. He must know she wonders and she can't just leave it anymore. Even if it's the best thing or what he wants, she doesn't know how to just leave it.

"This." She pulls the sheet carefully from between the other two. She lays it reverently on the counter. She feels his skin heat against hers. A blush. She feels the tension peeling his body away from hers. She reaches for him. She circles his wrists with her fingers and pulls his arms around her. "Is it . . . do you remember?"

He's quiet. The moment stretches out and it's hard to wait. It's hard not to press.

"Maybe," he says at last, but it's all rising inflection. It's a question. "My mother says I liked to read under there while she played. She used to tell a story. She was running her part and didn't notice me, but she kept hearing something."

"A sing-a-long?" She cranes her neck to look at him. The thought makes her smile.

Not him, though. He's somber. Embarrassed. He shakes his head. "Whispers. I was sounding out names from Ibsen."

She laughs softly. He calls her mean again. He draws her closer, though. Buries his face against her neck. She feels his lashes just dusting against her skin. She feels him closing his eyes to it. Pushing it away, but she holds on harder.

"I think you remember." She traces the curve of his sneaker. The luster of the pedals and the hesitation of Martha's toe about to come down. "Light," she says, her lips at his ear. "And shadow. I think you remember."


	5. Chapter 5

Title: Enough, Ch. 5

WC: ~1400, this chapter, ~7800 so far

Rating: T

Summary: "Good and bad, though, his dreams come and go. He remembers them in annoying detail, but they flow through him and out, and this isn't like him. He drags around the kitchen. He's dressed and shaved and everything's just as usual, but there's an ache wrapped all around him." Six-shot set after Hunt/Target (5 x 15, 5 x 16)

A/N: Splitting the last chapter and posting simultaneously.

* * *

><p>It's a hard morning. The clock says it's morning, anyway, though the outside world is all impenetrable grey. Sunless.<p>

She wishes she didn't have to go to work. He's been fine lately. Up until this morning. Better, or at least more settled. He's still writing, but there's been some kind of normalcy to it this last little while. He slips into bed just a few hours after she does. He kisses the top of her shoulder blade. She wakes for half a moment to murmur good night and scold him for stealing blankets. She sleeps more deeply with his body curled around hers. He sleeps, too. Fitfully, but still. He doesn't wander at night. He doesn't stay up 'till dawn, and he's a steadier presence at the precinct.

It was getting better, but this is a hard morning.

He had a dream. A bad dream that left him racked with sobs and slow to wake. It left him anguished. Devastated,and it's _so_ not like him.

His dreams are manic. Lurid and grotesque. They leave him laughing out loud more often than not. His nightmares are stark, cruel things that he wakes from all at once, sour with sweat and fear, but he likes the taste of them even so. He mines them. Reaches for the notebook in the nightstand and pins the details to the page like terrible butterflies.

Good and bad, though, his dreams come and go. He remembers them in annoying detail, but they flow through him and out, and this isn't like him. He drags around the kitchen. He's dressed and shaved and everything's just as usual, but there's an ache wrapped all around him.

"Maybe you should stay home. Just today." She steps up behind him and takes the cream from his hand. He's been standing there, still and staring into the waiting coffee cup for two minutes. For three. She tips in a thin stream until he nods sheepishly and reaches for a spoon. "You didn't . . . you couldn't get back to sleep?" He's silent. She nudges. "After?"

"Sleep?" He tries for bravado and misses. "Only mortals need sleep."

His hands are shaking with exhaustion. He grips the spoon tightly. Too tightly. His wrist jerks, and he sloshes coffee everywhere. It slops over the back of her hand. She hisses and jerks away. She forgets about the cream and now _that__'__s_ everywhere. All down the front of her shirt, and she's trying not to be exasperated.

"Maybe I'll stay home today," he says quietly. It should be a joke. Something that annoys her and makes her smile. It's not, though.

There's just an ache wrapped all around him.

* * *

><p>She's distracted all morning. There's nothing active going on anyway. It's all clean up and catch up. Paperwork and plenty to keep her busy. Nothing to occupy her, though.<p>

She's distracted. Espo's inclined to give her shit about it, but Ryan gives him an elbow for his trouble. He gives his partner the evil eye and chases him out of the break room. He corners Kate, and she wishes she'd been paying attention. She doesn't want to do this. She not quite up to anything, let alone Kevin Ryan's patented, dogged concern.

"Everything ok?" He's cheerful. He's always cheerful, but she can tell he's wincing a little. That he had to work up his nerve, and she realizes for the first time that Ryan must know. Everyone must know that things aren't ok.

"Fine," she says. It's curt and she hates it, but she hates feeling caught out more. She hates feeling like this is all far more out of control than she's realized.

"Yeah. Good." Ryan hops back a step. He flashes his palms in a brief gesture of apology. Of surrender. He's turning to go, but he stops. He plants his feet. "Except . . ." He mulls it over. How to say it. "Except it doesn't seem like everything's ok."

She weighs it all. Her natural reserve and the fact that she's his boss. She feels completely off script, because it's Castle who's tight lipped about this. It's Castle who can hardly stand to acknowledge that it's bad, even when it's just the two of them. It's Castle who hasn't opened up to Martha or Alexis or anyone but her, and he'd hate that everyone knows.

"It's Castle." It rushes out of her and she'd feel like a traitor, except it's such a relief. "It's Paris, and . . . it's everything. It's ok one day and then it's . . ."

"Not?" Ryan supplies.

It sounds simple when he says it, and she supposes it is in a way. There's so much—_so _much. Some of it's terrible, but some of it's . . . valuable, if not good. For him alone and him and Alexis. For Martha and for the two of them. Kate and Rick and all they've come to be. There are things they know now about choices and survival and what lengths each of them would go to. It's valuable and it's ok a lot of the time. It's getting there, but today . . .

"Not," she agrees after a long moment. She stares down at her coffee. At the swirl of light cream curling down into the dark. "I don't know what to . . . I don't know how to make it ok."

"You can't." Ryan shrugs. That's cheerful, too. She thinks about hitting him as he reaches past her for a mug, but he's mulling it over. He's oblivious. "You probably can't."

He catches her glare as he turns for the coffee pot. He blinks but stands his ground. She has the sudden suspicion that he lost a bet. That he and Esposito have been playing _No, _you_ talk to them_ for a while now and she'd just like to dissolve on the spot. She'd like to be anywhere but here.

"Beckett." Ryan sets the pot back on the burner. "You two are good for each other." He keeps his eyes on his coffee, like stirring is a challenge, and maybe it is when it comes to working out how it is the two of them ever found their way to one another. Maybe everything's a challenge in that light. "The two of you are different and it's . . ." He rolls his eyes and his cheeks go a little pink. "Well, insert romcom dialogue . . ."

"You'll have to give me a list."

"Trying to have a buddy cop moment here." Ryan gives her an exaggerated frown.

"Kinda feels like you're cheating on Espo, though." She gives him a sideways grin.

"Jenny says that all the time."

They share a quiet laugh, but the warmth of the moment won't quite go. The force of it surprises her. The relief. She lets her spoon clatter into the sink to cover, but she feels knots breaking up in her shoulders. In her chest. They're good for each other. She's good for _him_. It's something she needs to hear and it helps. But still, it's been a hard morning.

"Probably can't make it ok, huh?" Her head dips, and the mug isn't as steady as she'd like.

"What happened in Paris . . ." He hesitates. A thin edge creeps into the words. "_Whatever _happened in Paris. It was big."

She starts guiltily. He nods. It seems to be enough. An admission that they're not sharing everything about Paris. That they can't, however guilty they feel. However much she needs _someone _outside of them to lean on. Someone outside of them to know the weight of it all.

"Hey." The word is soft, but insistent. He draws her out of her reverie. "It's not going to be ok overnight."

"I know," she says it to her coffee, and she does. She knows.

Ryan bumps her shoulder in passing. He's cheerful again. Of course he is, and it's like some of it rubs. "Still . . ." He turns to her from the doorway and glances up at the clock. "Lunchtime."

"Lunchtime," she echoes. She sets down her hardly touched coffee and feels lighter. It's been a hard morning, but things feel simpler, suddenly. "Lunchtime."

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><p>AN: Thank you for reading and for your patience as this story got bigger than I expected it to be.


	6. Chapter 6

Title: Enough, Ch. 6

WC: ~2000, this chapter, ~9800 total

Rating: T

Summary: She doesn't know how long it is before he stirs again. She doesn't think she slept, exactly, but she's been drifting. Her body anchored by his rest and her mind skipping along like stones on water.

She has no idea what she'll say. She has too many ideas what she ought to say and what she needs to make him see. None of it is easy, least of all in the simple beauty of him waking.." Six-shot set after Hunt/Target (5 x 15, 5 x 16)

A/N: Final chapter at last. This contains spoilers for and a very short excerpt from _Frozen Heat, _if you care about the tie-in books.

* * *

><p>The loft is quiet when she slips in. More than dark, it's shrouded in gloom and absolutely silent. He's sleeping. She hopes that he's sleeping. She hopes it's no worse than that, and she's half in shadow, half in light after Ryan and a hard morning and everything.<p>

She eases off her shoes and carefully unpacks the shopping bag. There's too much. Soup and hot, heaping sandwiches. She cracks open foil tops a little and sets the oven to just barely warm. She wedges in the last container and the door hardly closes. It's too much. Still, she's satisfied with her handiwork. All of this is more him than her. Lunchtime and overkill. It's him, and she thinks that's probably the right thing for this particular moment.

She creeps through the living room, confident in her stocking feet. Confident despite the chaos and gloom. The office is much the same as she left it this morning when she walked him back to the desk. When she tried to coax him to bed and he miserably insisted he'd work.

It's much the same. Papers spread out and books with their spines cracked. His mug, still full and cold now. The only thing missing is him, and for a moment, she's afraid he's gone. She's terribly afraid, and it carries her, stumbling, to the bedroom door.

He's there. Face down and sprawled, but his chest rises and falls with the regularity of deep sleep. His iPad blazes up at the ceiling. His fingertips are just at the edge of whatever he's been reading, and the weight must be enough to keep the backlight steady. It's warm to the touch. Too warm, and she sees the battery level has crept low.

She eases herself on to the bed, careful of her movements. She slips one hand under the tablet, the other under his wrist. His fingers reach reflexively for hers. They curl tight around them and he tucks the combined knot of their fist under his chin. His lips move. The murmur of her name against his knuckles, and she's worried that she's woken him.

He settles though. He winces a little as the iPad tips on her thigh and the light falls across his face. She draws her knees up sharply, still holding his hand and awkwardly dragging her finger up the smooth glass surface to mark his place.

It catches her eye, though. A short block of text his own fingers have dragged over to underscore.

_She could still see Tyler Wynn regarding her from his pillow. The old CIA man saying her mother was one hell of a spy. And how __"__the sense of mission it gave her fulfilled heroic nothing else could.__" _

_Nikki completed the rest of the thought for herself: not even me. _

* * *

><p>She needs to stay. It's the sole thought that grounds her, and she's calm in the face of it at first. There are things to do. Work to call. Esposito to call, because Ryan may have lost a bet—he may have been the one to speak up—but they're all worried. They're all part of everything that's not ok, because he's their partner, too. Because they're all family.<p>

It's easier with Espo. She's not proud of it, necessarily, but his gruffness fits her silence. The way their dysfunction overlaps is easier. It's the work of two minutes. Terse instructions from her. Exaggerated, long-suffering complaints from him. He tells her not to call Gates. That he and Ryan have the slack and there's literally nothing going on.

She calls anyway. It's bad. Not because Gates resists or calls her out. Because she doesn't, and Kate hates the idea of catching a break from that particular quarter. She hates the idea that she needs it and Gates knows. But it's done.

She fusses at the oven. She lowers the temperature a tick more and decides it'll keep or it won't. That too much food is one way to take care of him—a leaf from his own book—but it's not the point of the thing. She's staying. That's the point.

She hurries back through the gloom of the office and eases back on to the bed. She curls herself as close as she dares, her forehead practically touching his. She slips her fingers back into the loose fist pressed between his collarbones.

A smile flits across his face at the contact. His shoulders wriggle and he tightens his hold. He settles deeper into sleep.

She keeps watch.

* * *

><p>She doesn't know how long it is before he stirs again. She doesn't think she slept, exactly, but she's been drifting. Her body anchored by his rest and her mind skipping along like stones on water.<p>

She has no idea what she'll say. She has too many ideas what she _ought _to say and what she needs to make him see. None of it is easy, least of all in the simple beauty of him waking.

He blinks heavily. He frowns and smiles and his lips form her name. His voice isn't cooperating, though. It's back wherever he's been while he slept, and it takes him a few tries.

"Morning," he says. He adds a question mark. A puzzled afterthought. "Night? You're home . . ."

His brow furrows. He tries to rouse himself, but his limbs are heavy, and he's not used to her patient silence. Neither of them is, but she waits for him to settle again. She brings her other hand up, a long drag from hip to shoulder before she adds it to the tangle of fingers against his chest.

"Afternoon. Going on evening, maybe?" She shrugs. A tiny hitch of her shoulder. She has all the time in the world for him. It's one thing she ought to say, and stillness is one way to say it. Patience and keeping watch. "Brought you lunch, but you were . . ."

"Writing." He scrubs his free hand over his face.

"Reading." She says it quietly and tips her head toward the iPad resting on the nightstand now. It feels like a step out over thin air. There are too many things she ought to say.

"Just checking something." He says it too quickly. He's more alert all of a sudden. He's moving for cover. "Continuity."

"When did you know she was a spy?" It's a strange question. It's strange to have it there between them when they're lying in the dark, sharing breath, and there's so much she ought to say, but something carries her on. "Nikki's mother."

"Long time."

He shrugs, like it doesn't matter. That Nikki is him and her together. That her story isn't just their own, mined and made over into something new. That it's a strange prophecy. Stranger still since Paris.

"Before . . ." Her voice wavers, and she's surprised this hurts a little, this sudden wondering about things that didn't happen. "You didn't know there'd be a second book. You were going to leave."

"No," he says. It's forceful. Definite and clear. "Nikki . . . her mother . . . it never had anything to do with a certain British spy."

She kisses him gently, thankful for that. For his certainty, even though it's not quite true. "_Everything _has to do with a certain British spy. _Casino Royale . . .__" _

". . . made me want to write." He sounds glum. Unhappy and aching. "That's all, though. Nikki is Nikki. She's you."

"And you." She closes her fingers tighter around his. She's thinking of Jordan Shaw. He is, too, and there's no room for three of them here. She presses on. "The iPad was stuck on when I got here."

"It's been doing that." He moves to reach behind to the nightstand, but she holds him fast. She draws him back to face her. He blinks in surprise.

"I wondered when I read it. This one." She grinds her teeth. This feels . . . unkind. "I never felt that way."

He stills. He's feeling caught. She can see it. The way he has a joke on the tip of his tongue. Or maybe feigned confusion. Maybe he's inclined to pretend he doesn't follow. But he listens, interested in spite of himself. He's always interested in her.

"My mom was always there. Always. My dad sometimes . . ." She struggles with it. She's trying to be fair. "He was always focused on work. I wanted more of him, I guess. When I was a kid."

"When he was drinking?" He says it cautiously. He dips his mouth to kiss her knuckles again. "It had to feel like . . ."

He trails off and she feels his skin burning. Her own burns right alongside, but she swallows it down. The fight in her. The need to insist they're damned well going to put him under the microscope for once. She inhales. Tells herself there's room for more than one revelation in this.

"Like he loved her more than me. Like he could live just fine without me." She sees her name rising up on his lips. She kisses him silent. "It's ok. Yes. When he was drinking, I felt like I wasn't enough."

"But you were." He holds their hands up between them. He turns her wrist so the face of her watch catches what little light there is. "The life you saved. You were enough."

She doesn't say anything right away. She lets it sink in, for him and for her. She lets one heartbeat and another go by before she speaks.

"So are you." She keeps her eyes on him, steady, though he's looking down. "You're enough, too, Castle."

She sees denial in the twitch of his mouth. Sorrow and ache. The hard lines of sarcasm and the way it all goes blank.

"Enough for once every couple decades, anyway. Enough for used books."

She has a thought. A terrible thought and she weighs the possibilities. She can't make it ok. Not overnight and not for good, but she can't stand this. The sorrow and ache are too much and it's gone on too long. She has to try, even though it's terrible.

"Do you blame Alexis?"

"What?"

It's as bad as she thought it might be. It's worse. His body is still, but he draws himself far back. Away from her. He rears up, furious and ready to defend.

"Meredith left New York when she was, what? Five? Younger? When was the last time she even _saw _Alexis before January?"

"That has nothing . . ." He's livid. Practically speechless. "Meredith is . . ."

"Meredith is Meredith." She holds on. He's tugging his hands away now, but she holds on. "She made her choices and it has nothing to do with Alexis not being worthy. You know that."

"Of course I know that," he snaps. He rolls on to his back, away from her, but he takes her hand with him, clasped tight now, like he's angry and he needs her and he _hurts._ "I know."

"Ok. Ok." Her body creeps closer to his. She presses her cheek into the crook of his shoulder. "I just want you to know it for you, too."

"I don't care." He stares up at the ceiling. His eyes are dry and it's eerily calm, though the hurt lies thick on them both. "I don't even know him. Why should I care why I wasn't enough?"

"You shouldn't." She whispers her lips over his temple. The corner of his mouth and the bare skin just over the collar of his shirt. "You shouldn't care at all."

"I don't want to." His head lolls to the side. She sees his throat working hard and the struggle to meet her eyes. To make amends, as though she's holding it against him. "I don't want to care."

She raises up over him. She drapes herself along his body and pulls him toward her, twining their limbs together.

"I know." She lets her fingers drag down his side and up his spine. She curls her palm at the back of his neck and rests his head on her chest. "But you do care. And you are. You're enough, Castle." She presses her lips along the lines of his forehead. "You're enough.

* * *

><p>AN: Again, thanks for reading.


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